September 28, 2020

Zooming – September 2020

September 28, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Less that 1000 photos this month…but still enough zoomed images for this post: 16 images. 4 of the images were inside (the stained glass butterfly and the super zoomed flowers). There are 4 butterflies (Common Buckeye, Red Admiral, Palamedes Swallowtail, and Spread-winged Skipper) and a Monarch caterpillar. All 3 birds are somewhat unusual: the Northern Cardinal is a juvenile still begging to be fed by its parents but learning quickly to find seed on our deck, the Blue Jay is contorting itself to get seed from the feeder (the roosts are too close together for him), and the Caroline Wren is tailless. Other animals in our yard or deck are also included: a chipmunk with very fat cheeks and a deer. And lastly are our trees: the sycamore leaves beginning to change against a blue sky after the smoke from the west coast that past over Maryland at 30,000 feet cleared out and an oak leaf that might be an indication that our oak tree has the infection common in our state (and not something we can treat…may eventually kill the tree).

All the pictures were taken at our house or the CSA.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Green tomatoes. I got 2 green tomatoes in the CSA share last week; they have been near the kitchen window since then. One began to turn red almost immediately and the other has stayed green. I’ll make green salsa with the one that is still green (or something else that cooks the green tomato so that it is edible) and let the other one finish turned red to eat like a regular tomato.

September 04, 2020

More Butterflies at the CSA

September 04, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

There seemed to be even more butterflies at the Community Supported Agriculture cutting garden when I went to cut my flowers and stevia this week. I’d remembered to take my better camera so got some reasonably good pictures. I managed to identify all of them using the Maryland Butterflies web page when I looked at the images on my big monitor.

I’ve seen the Common Buckeye many times but they seemed to be a lot more of them in close proximity than I had seen before.

The Pink-edged Sulphur was a new one for me. I knew it was a ‘sulphur’ when it photographed it but didn’t see the edges clearly until it was on the big screen.

The Red Admiral on the cone flower was one I don’t remember seeing before but it is evidently found through most of Maryland.

I’d seen the Palamedes Swallowtails in previous year’s Wings of Fancy exhibits inside the conservatory. This was the first one I’ve seen in the wild. I realized it was a swallowtail when I photographed it and that it looked a little different than the dark morphs of tiger swallowtails that often are more common in this area.

What a thrill to see three new-to-me butterflies this week!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Car service. We took my husband’s car to the dealership for a gear shift button repair (it popped off!!!). It turned out to be a recall item and they had the replacement part. Now the service is up to date on the car as well. My car will get serviced next week. We haven’t been driving much this year….but the cars do have a maintenance schedule.

Yampa Valley Festival of the Cranes. I started making my way through the videos. They are well done. It is positive story as well because Northwest Colorado’s Greater Sandhill Cranes have gone from endangered to threatened (1993) to special concern (1998). I’d like to go to the festival held just before their fall migration south some year….see the young cranes leaving the nesting grounds. Some of them end up in Bosque del Apache where we’ve been twice to the festival in November (cancelled this year).

Fledgling chipping sparrow. This is the time for fledging chipping sparrows (probably second brood). There was one that was trying to come to the feeder while I was out with my morning caffeine. It couldn’t quite manage getting on the perch so would flutter down to the deck railing and an adult bird would bring some seed. Hopefully, it will become coordinated enough to get its own seed soon.

September 17, 2019

Some Insects at Brookside Gardens – September 2019

September 17, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

There are always plenty of plants to see during a walk at Brookside Gardens, but I’ve been looking for insects in a few of my short walks before starting my shift inside the butterfly exhibit. The weather has been pleasant…just warm enough for the insects to be active but not overly hot for a walk. I saw an Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly along the walk toward the arrivals area for the butterfly exhibit.

A few feet away…about 30 seconds later…I saw a Hummingbird Moth Clearwing. What a great way to start the morning!

The next time I was at the gardens, I walked back to the same area. I photographed 2 different insects but they were not as showy as the dragonfly and hummingbird moth.

I headed up to the salvia garden to see if there were still any hummingbirds feeding on the plants there. I saw a couple of females but didn’t have the right camera to attempt to photograph them. I did see a Common Buckeye taking a break on a gravel path.

2019 09 IMG_5354.jpg — The salvia garden is very popular with bees of all kinds. There were large bees that were nectar robbing because they were too big to get into the flower (sometimes the stems bent a little with the weight of the bee as well). They had shiny abdomens so were probably carpenter bees.

October 31, 2018

Zooming – October 2018

October 31, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

The fall foliage had not been as colorful as usual this fall…but there has still been a lot to see outdoors – aided my the zoom on my camera: Canadian geese, a common buckeye butterfly, webs of funnel spiders on a root ball of an overturned tree, colorful ferns, milkweed seeds spilling out, tiny mushrooms in mulch, a spider web highlighted by water droplets, and a female cardinal with fluffed feathers. Enjoy the slide show!

October 30, 2018

Ten Little Celebrations – October 2018

October 30, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Glorious fall – even if our leaf color is the least spectacular of the 30+ years I’ve lived on the east coast. All my celebrations this month were outdoors!

**Hiking in the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area after heavy rain** – lots of mud but my boots handled it well

2018 10 IMG_3034.jpg — **Bald Eagles** – the serendipity of seeing them soaring over a shopping center parking lot

Common Buckeye in a native plant garden on a sunny day

Mushrooms and cobwebs at Centennial Park…spectacular on a foggy morning

Finding a crawfish and hellgrammite in the Middle Patuxent River with high schoolers. We were all very cold but managed to still find some interesting critters.

Fifth graders with clipboards and pencils on a **BioBlitz at Belmont.**

First graders enjoying **a hike on a cold fall morning** (seeing a immature black rat snake)

Finding a **spotted salamander** with a group of 7th graders on a BioBlitz at Mt. Pleasant

**A rainy day in the Middle Patuxent River** with high schoolers – and realizing that the students were pleased with the macroinvertebrates we found. They came dressed for the rain!

A long hike from Belmont to the Patapsco Valley State Park Avalon area – getting all my steps for the day in less than 3 hours

October 23, 2018

Common Buckeye Butterfly

October 23, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I took pictures from several perspectives. The colors and markings are very distinctive. It has knobs on the end of the antennae and whitish palpi between its eyes. It’s reported to like flowers with yellow centers…and that it what this individual was enjoying.

The entrance of the nature center has a nice display of fall pumpkins and squash.

I had come to the nature center earlier to participate look at macroinvertebrates in this part of the Middle Patuxent – upstream from the location for the two assessment with high schoolers earlier this week. Two differences: 1) no clams at Robinson….lots of them further down the river and 2) we found a snail…didn’t find any downstream. We found more of everything but that could have been the difference between and adult group and high schoolers….and we had more time to do the project.

July 27, 2018

Belmont Hikes with Summer Campers III

July 27, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Yesterday I was at Howard County Conservancy’s Belmont for photography hikes with the summer campers. We could hike because the rain moved out during the night and the morning was sunny. The cardinal flowers near the entrance were blooming well after the deluge of the previous days.

I started off the younger group with an activity looking at sycamore leaves from the branches I had cut from my tree at home: looking at the holes made by caterpillars and comparing the sizes of the leaves. We made a pattern on the pavers of the patio in front of the Carriage House as a subject for our first photographs.

We found a very small caterpillar on one of the leaves.

Then we went around to the other side of the house and looked at the pollinator garden and the surrounding vegetation.

The older group of campers went to the formal gardens behind the manor house. There were three kinds of butterflies that I managed to photograph….but missed the monarch that some of the campers managed to catch on the cone flowers. I took the common buckeye, a cabbage white, and a hairstreak (maybe a gray hairsteak). The last one was new to me….had to look at it closely when I got hope. It looks like it has antennae on both ends!

We gathered around the water feature in the gardens and enjoyed the variety water lilies and a lotus growing there. There were bees – usually head down – in several flowers.

Dragonflies are hard to capture with cell phone type camera (which is what most of the campers were trying to use) but everyone saw them…and I managed a picture.